FOOD AND HEALTH ESSENTIALS

The Commission of the European Union (EU) has recommended reopening negotiations with the US over that country’s export of hormone-free beef products to the EU.

Issued at the end of March, the stated aim of the Roadmap developed by the Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development is to “establish country-allocation of the tariff-rate quota” for hormone-free beef under the terms of an interim Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the EU and the US. It comes in the wake of concerns raised by some in the US beef industry that the current terms regarding importation quotas and tariffs applicable to US producers puts them at a competitive disadvantage compared with other importing countries, and an implied threat in some quarters of retaliatory action by the US government.

The Commission’s Roadmap calls for a review of the MoU in an effort to find a “mutually satisfactory solution in line with WTO rules, and to facilitate the eventual termination of the long-standing dispute.”

A landing page dedicated to the Commission’s Roadmap on the EU’s agreement with the U.S. on the importation of hormone-free beef is available here. Interest parties can post comments there on the Commission’s proposal until April 24th, 2018.